


The Wish of the Captain

by kuutar (teapertti)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:36:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teapertti/pseuds/kuutar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years on the other side get long and lonely when he's gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wish of the Captain

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Nuorukainen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464358) by [teapertti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teapertti/pseuds/teapertti). 



> Ghost stories are associated with this month in some cultures, am I right? (Note: The fic was originally published in October). Though it's not like this is scary or something. Or even particularly good.
> 
> (This is a translation of the original Author Notes. For the notes about the translation, see the bottom of the page).
> 
> Addition: The narrator, Thomas, is an OC, even when he shares a name with a canon character.

I couldn't really figure out what I thought of Captain Kirstein. Due to a reason I wasn't aware of, four others and I had been chosen to be a part of his squad shortly after we had decided to join the Survey Corps. Captain Kirstein was not old, but he had seen a lot during his life and it had shaped him to a serious and seemingly rational man, to someone who was mature for his age. Obviously it was not like the others in the Scouting Legion hadn't witnessed terrible things; many of them were similar to the Captain. But inside Jean Kirstein there throbbed something that none of us really could, or to be precise, even wanted to completely identify.

We started our journey on horseback outside the walls soon afterwards. We were still young and not really sure if we should hold a carefree attitude towards the matter or not. The Captain wasn't bothered by the order, so my comrades and I decided that we wouldn't worry either, even when the life of a soldier was full of danger and misery. My horse was black and restless by nature; it presumably had something akin to myself. The feeling of freedom seemed constrained when we departed the city; left behind the human settlements and journeyed towards the abandoned castle where the Scouting Legion held a base nowadays. There was no one else, and the emptiness of the rooms was almost breathtaking.

In the evening we sat in the light of the candles, us rookies; the Captain had gone somewhere else. Camille told us a story she had heard from some older army member.

"You know, related to this place... Years ago, it's been a long time since that, one squad went into a battle just near this place. Captain Kirstein was involved, but he was saved because he had broken his gear and had to return to the base. Everyone else from the squad died. One of them, named Armin Arlert, was fatally wounded and tried to drag himself back here, howling with pain and leaving an enormous trail of blood behind. But he died when he reached that well you saw in the yard. He never made it here," she finished her story. It made me feel nauseous, and I preferred not to think anymore about the unhappy fate of that soldier, for that might happen to any of us. The buzz of the conversation abated as the Captain arrived. We glanced at each other and his serious face. He had a deep scar in his cheek; it was the only memorial for his achievements. He didn't seem proud. We had been told that every setback in the rows of the Survey Corps would make us stronger, but I doubted that, for people were not strong by nature. More like, we would just learn to forget our weakness.

The sound of the crickets echoed in my head as I was preparing to go to sleep. It was already September, but the evenings were still warm so I decided to open the window. The hinges creaked unpleasantly , and I hoped the wind wouldn't rise during the night. In the darkness of a fall evening the room looked even more strange and unwelcoming; the moon cast its long shadow to the room and bathed the window in its light. I dug myself under a blanket and listened to the sounds of the crickets; they should've died already, but perhaps because summer had been so warm and humid the crickets had been able to survive to this point and continue their unpleasant buzzing that didn't fit to the mood of this season at all.

I woke up to a monotonous tapping during the night. Actually the tapping might just have been part of the dream I was having, for it stopped the moment I managed to open my eyes. It took a while before my sight got used to the darkness. I rose up in order to drink water, and I glanced towards the window to see if the sun was rising. To my horror, I saw a human face. Behind the rimed window the hollow features shaped themselves little by little in the darkness of the night; the expression was stable, as if he was asleep, and desperate like the face of a dying person. I thought first that the watcher was a woman, for his hair reached his chin, but then I discovered that he was a young man. The man had blonde hair and milky white skin, and his eyes were empty. First I got frightened; a scream almost escaped from my lips. But then the creature started to look like a doll – or something similar to that – to me. I saw part of the chin and the nose in the gap of the window. The hinges creaked silently.

We stared at each other, him and I, or it seemed more like he was not looking at anywhere particularly; his gaze had been fixed to something otherworldly. Finally, on impulse I decided to open my mouth and ask him:

"Who are you?" The creature didn't reply, instead he let his cold gaze rest elsewhere. Would he come in if I opened the window entirely? On a second thought, I decided that I didn't want that particular guy inside my room, even when he seemed to wait for an invite on the other side of the window. Slowly I walked across the floor and approached the intruder. When I came to the window, I noticed that he was wearing a severely torn Survey Corps uniform, similar to my own. The metal clinked as I closed the window. After I had turned around I walked fast and climbed to my bed and fell asleep in a minute.

In the morning everything was as usual. There were no marks of someone visiting the room, even the clear window glass had no traces of someone touching it. In the daylight, the mere thought of someone in a military uniform peeking through the window was purely absurd. How could I have imagined it being something else than a dream? Granted, back then the coolness of the night and the creaking of the hinges had felt very real... I dressed myself and hurried downstairs to meet the other members of the squad. I told them about my unusually realistic dream, and it evoked hilarity in others.

"You've always been somehow neurotic, Thomas!"

"Did you think that the spirit of good ol' Armin Arlert came to greet you?" they teased me. The door slammed and Captain Kirstein stepped in with an oddly strained expression on his face.

"Armin Arlert, what about him?" he asked. Others threw looks at me and expected me to speak for us all. I hesitated for a while, but after meeting the Captain's gaze I decided to tell him about my dream.

Initially I thought that the Captain would get irritated and ask me to stop believing in ghosts. However, he listened to my story attentively, as if it was something remarkable or valuable. When I finished my story, he looked deep into my eyes and asked:

"Could you show me where you saw that young man?" I nodded unsurely. I didn't understand how he would benefit from that knowledge, but I had no reason for saying no. As we trailed the steps to upstairs one after another I felt his heavy breathing on the back of my neck; if I didn't know better, I would've thought that he was afraid. When we reached the room, I showed him the only, now closed, window. The Captain walked to the place I had pointed out, and inspected it for a moment, and looked outside to the yard and the well that was there. Having done that he turned to me and said in a serious and emphatic tone:

"Thomas, tonight you sleep in my room and I will stay here." I got confused, not knowing what to answer, but the eyes of Captain Kirstein were stern and mournful, and I nodded in agree.

We didn't leave the base that day, and when the night fell I took my belongings to the Captain's room and felt surprisingly relieved when I noticed that there were no windows. During the night I dreamed of nothing, absolutely nothing, and it was still early in the morning when I woke up from my slumber. As I walked along the corridor, I saw the door leading to my room to be slightly open. Without even trying to properly control my curiosity, I peeked in through the gap of the door. I saw the figure of the Captain stooped in the front of the wide open window, head resting on the windowsill. First I got frightened, for I thought he was dead, and opened the creaking door. He awoke with a start, looked out of the window and then behind himself. His face looked fervently desperate, but when he saw me, it returned to its usual, serious and melancholic state.

"So it was just you," he mumbled and looked then again to the outside. Now I understood that he had stayed awake beside the window, waiting to see the same vision as I did.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. The Captain sank to the ground and now I saw that he was crying, fiercely and hopelessly. I didn't know what to say, even though I saw that he was overwhelmed with sadness, and I felt myself small and insignificant; shamefully helpless.

"I'm sorry, whatever it is," I spluttered again, and he turned to look at me, the brown almond eyes red and filled with tears; frenzied and endlessly sorrowful.

"I miss him so much! I long for him more than a thirsty man longs for water or a child longs for his home! The day he died, I stood here and saw him by that well. I ran to him but I was unable to do anything; all I remember is the very last glimpse of life in his eyes and the words I never got to hear. Is it wrong that I believe he returned here just for my sake? Oh, how I wish to hear his voice once more and see him smiling at me! But he has been taken away from me, just like everyone else I live for in this world. Why would he leave me?" He shouted and lamented, and his noble figure had diminished him into something miserable and primitive; a malformed caricature of a pining man. I watched the outburst of emotions while holding my breath.

"I am sorry, Captain Kirstein..." I managed to say and then I went away, my heart beating fiercely. It was the first time among many when I regretted joining the Survey Corps.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written originally under the name "Nuorukainen", meaning simply "a young man", sharing it's name with a hautingly beautiful Scandinavian Music Group song which has served as an inspiration to me countless times during my writing career. For the translation I decided to change it, because it doesn't really tell much about the content of the story, and even the song doesn't actually relate to this fic in the end. 
> 
> Some slight changes have been made, but mostly the translation follows the original text.
> 
> I was again assisted by the user Aespren, and once again I'm very thankful for that.


End file.
